Cooking, baking, I owe all of that to my mom. She always let me help in the kitchen as soon as I was old enough to be a help and not a pending ER visit! She showed me how to make my first pancakes, french toast, a cake. She showed me how to scramble my first egg and so much more. People always say to me, "Man you are a really good home chef!" And I know where it ll started. One memory sticks out though. Right before my 5th birthday, my mom asked me what kind of cake would I Iike for my party. She obviously was looking for an answer of "chocolate" or "strawberry" or some request for ice-cream etc.... So what was my answer to her? I said I wanted a "Monkey Cake." I was heavy into Curious George at the time and, somewhere in my five year old mind, decided that a "Monkey Cake" was the perfect birthday cake. She scoured all over our little town for something to make a "Monkey Cake" whatever in the world that was. This was 1972 in a small town in California so it wasn't like she could troll the internet looking for ideas, and her friends were stumped too. A Monkey Cake? My birthday cake rolled out before my eyes a few days later that Spring day and there it was. It was my mom's best chocolate frosted, yellow cake, adorned with a dozen little plastic monkey figures all around my five candles in various poses. On one aisle of the local 5 and dime she had found one little package of monkeys. She has a picture of me looking at the cake candle lit cake while everyone was singing to me and you've never seen a kid so happy. Thanks, mom! I got my Monkey Cake!

• Reply